Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I don't understand the current COVID situation in the NFL.
Why in a league that governs every aspect of their employees' lives including what color socks they must wear
has the league not made vaccines mandatory?
I can't believe that all these players are acquiring the disease after being vaccinated.

Whatever the reason, it's given us two new shows: Monday Afternoon Football and Tuesday Night Football. They don't get this under control, we'll soon be looking at Friday Morning Football.

John Grasso wrote:I don't understand the current COVID situation in the NFL.
Why in a league that governs every aspect of their employees' lives including what color socks they must wear
has the league not made vaccines mandatory?
I can't believe that all these players are acquiring the disease after being vaccinated.

The league can't make vaccines mandatory for players because of the players' union. The real question is why isn't the players' union mandating vaccines? Does the players' union mandate other vaccines, such as the cocktail of vaccines we all take as children, or especially the meningitis vaccine due to the close quarters players occupy? I don't know.

Vaccination does not prevent someone from contracting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2), a.k.a. "the coronavirus" (the virus), but it does prevent someone from developing Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), a.k.a. "COVID" (the symptoms).

The NFL tests for the presence of the virus, which can be in the bodies of anyone, vaccinated or not.

The latest variants of SARS-CoV-2 are more virulent (Delta and Omicron) which is why so many more people are contracting the virus. We will all get the virus eventually. (I don't think that's hyperbole.) But we all won't develop COVID, unless a new variant pops up that can bypass the vaccines completely, then we're back to square one.

The fortunate thing about viruses is that they tend to mutate into a strain that is more virulent but less deadly. This is what happened with the influenza virus during World War I. There is a hint this might be the case with the Omicron variant. Why does this happen? Because if a virus is too deadly, it kills off its host before the host can spread the virus to someone else. In order to survive, a virus must mutate to become less deadly and more virulent.

RichardBak wrote:Whatever the reason, it's given us two new shows: Monday Afternoon Football and Tuesday Night Football. They don't get this under control, we'll soon be looking at Friday Morning Football.

Or Friday Mourning Football...

John Grasso wrote:I don't understand the current COVID situation in the NFL.
Why in a league that governs every aspect of their employees' lives including what color socks they must wear
has the league not made vaccines mandatory?
I can't believe that all these players are acquiring the disease after being vaccinated.

Making the vaccine mandatory wouldn't change anything happening. The overwhelming majority of players (and all coaches and team personnel) who are testing positive are vaccinated, many have gotten the booster as well.

Same thing in the NHL where only ONE player in the entire league is unvaccinated, yet they've had to shut down the league from late tonight through the 25th due to all the positive tests in the league.

Just learned my cousin died in Fla. of Covid. He was 68 and didn't take care of himself, but still....You gotta wonder if this thing is ever gonna run its course.

RichardBak wrote:Just learned my cousin died in Fla. of Covid. He was 68 and didn't take care of himself, but still....You gotta wonder if this thing is ever gonna run its course.

It should. Though the variants are getting more contagious they also seem to be becoming less severe. Covid will likely never go away completely but it will likely get to the point to where it is the common cold. Once the death rates decline enough the restrictions for people who have gotten it will likely start loosening up.

lastcat3 wrote:

RichardBak wrote:Just learned my cousin died in Fla. of Covid. He was 68 and didn't take care of himself, but still....You gotta wonder if this thing is ever gonna run its course.

It should. Though the variants are getting more contagious they also seem to be becoming less severe. Covid will likely never go away completely but it will likely get to the point to where it is the common cold. Once the death rates decline enough the restrictions for people who have gotten it will likely start loosening up.

Where I live (New Bedford, MA, with a population of about 95,000), the hospital emergency room and ICU are stretched beyond capacity. I was recently admitted to the emergency room (not COVD related) and I had to sleep in the hallway there for 2 nights waiting for a bed to open up. 75% of the people in the hospital with COVID and 89'% of those in the ICU are unvaccinated.

Ralph, I hope you were in for something relatively minor and that you are doing well.

There are reasons why most of the players who get COVID are vaccinated. One, 95% of the players are vaccinated, which is far more than the percentage of Americans (62%) who are.

Two, the players spend an unusual amount of their time indoors among teammates and team staff, and Omicron is transmitted much more easily within buildings than previous strains.

Three, unvaccinated players are sequestered to a point just short of quarantine -- they train separately, travel separately, are tested daily, and must stay away from large groups off the field. That caution (coddling, one might say) leaves them far less vulnerable than the average unvaccinated citizen.

It's indisputable that the shots lessen the severity of symptoms while also reducing the likelihood of transmission. The league and the union have to get together on this.